My father has owned a lot of cars in his lifetime, but he has always insisted that his S30 was the purest of driving experiences, despite it not being the fastest car he had owned. I've never had the opportunity to experience one first hand, this particular chassis aims to remedy that issue.

We purchased two 72's from Austin, Texas approximately two years ago, they are twins in every way imaginable. The chassis that this topic is based on, is the one that required the least amount of work to the floors. Ironically, both of the front floors are shot, but this Z in particular happens to have a better rear section.

I'm starting from scratch, I've torn it down and need to build it back up. I intend to build it as a street car with some interesting changes made along the way. I won't bore you with the teardown, it's the same with every car, rather, I will start from the bare shell I have now.

We built a rotisserie to aid in the restoration, so most of the major reconstruction will happen on this piece of kit. Now for the interesting bit.

Keep in mind, my father is helping with this project, but it's up to me to do most of the work. This is a project that is meant to test me on my ability to adapt to new situations and overcome. I'm 19, with one year of autobody school under my belt. I'm going to channel all of my experience and knowledge into this, and hopefully, it will turn out to be one of the nicest S30's in the GVRD (Vancouver etc.)

Stripped and waiting to be placed on the rotisserie

On the rotisserie

Floors out with the help of my dad

Stripping the undercarriage and the start of some more cutting.

And finally, tonight, more deconstruction. We have a parts car coming in to source better quarter panels from, they're going to be installed using factory spot weld points.

He is a very good work that is building s30 from scratch,,, more than wonderful achievement

I have a s30 Model 1977 I bought two years ago from the United States - California - Rozlevt, and shipped the car to Saudi Arabia. Car situation to run away Agency worked on some improvements on the engine

Drove to Blaine to pick up the vented hatch that I've been looking for, came with the plastic ducting inside the hatch, missing the interior vinyl trim panel and the outside grilles, but it's in good shape with the vertical defrost glass intact.

Payed $100 for it, getting the outside grilles will be easy, the interior panel... not so much. I'll post pics tomorrow when I'm at the shop.

Air that is rushing over the hatch enters from the vents under the window, it's sent into ducting that exits through the holes at the bottom of the hatch. What it does is create negative air pressure to suck humid air out of the cabin (green highlighted slot), as humidity is what caused a lot of rust in these cars (240z's).

One of the other, lesser known extraction methods for humidity, was under the emblems on the quarter panels. On the inside of the quarter panel, there is a vent (welded on) that runs through the emblem hole and out. It works the same way as with the hatch, air rushing past the quarter panel sucks air out of the cabin. I've had many people ask me why Datsun put big holes in the quarter panels just for emblems, but the emblems were actually just a way to cover up the extractor. These do not exist on 1970 240's, the quarter panel emblems are a more conventional, flush mount type. I can only assume that they switched to the vented emblems when they realised how much cheaper they could make the extractor on the quarter panel versus a hatch with multiple special parts.

Almost finished welding the flanges up on the driver's side tonight, looking really good.

It's been a while, progress has been made. I've missed posting three updates, so I'll just stick them all into this one post.

this is what we've done in terms of quarter panel replacement so far. The quarter panel from the '71 (pictured) was cut off and will serve as a great replacement for the quarter panel on the '72.

Scavenged the front rocker panel horns (and the support structure underneath) for the purpose of grafting it onto the project car where it was rusted right out. The outermost panel is slightly pitted, but it was an original piece (good fitment) that was structurally sound enough to clean up and re-use.

The inner support was stamped differently from the factory because it was a '71 instead of a '72, so you can see a tiny bit of shifting in the lines of the panel, but they fit well enough to secure a solid bond.

First time doing patch work in a while, but it turned out nicely in the end. Used weld through primer on the inside of the panels before welding them shut, we're going to spray a coating inside the rocker panel on top of that to protect it from rust for years to come.

Anyway..

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Cut up a patch panel to repair the rear decklid with, also kept welding up the patch panel on the front of the rocker. The whole section is super solid now, should last for a long time.

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Pictures of the repaired decklid, this is just the bottom two pieces fixed, there is another piece that welds over top of these that I have yet to purchase.

We also started working the new panels into shape, they weren't very good for panels that are plainly visible on the outside of the car.

Also included a picture of what kind of welds to expect once you pull off your fenders, pictured is the fender apron to a-pillar weld(s). I think I'll be going over them myself to make sure they never come loose (they did on the parts car).

Not sure if it's still commercially available but Devcon-Z [spray can or regular brush on] was a zinc coating that served as galvanizing and would make a great coat for interior panel surfaces that have to be welded shut and never to see the light of day again.

Tore down the dogleg to the very first panel, then rebuilt it. The photos were taken after I had sprayed zinc (weld through primer) onto it. Third photo is with the second panel attached, not done yet, which is why it looks a bit messy.

We already have sand blasting equipment, but we picked this up to try out on small areas without moving the car. The gun isn't spectacular, but it works well enough for us.

We've started aquiring parts, we could have purchased brand new (NOS) parts, but the used ones our parts guy had were just as good. We'll probably buy up the new parts for when my dad builds the other Z. Got fenders, steel headlight buckets, mint (straight) inspection lids (if you own a Z, you know what a score those are).